1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus having a preview function for presenting (displaying) a visually recognizable print image to a user, for example, before performing print processing, and relates to an information processing method, a program, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional image processing system acquires a print image to be printed and displays the image on a screen beforehand.
According to a conventionally known technique, a computer (data processing apparatus) is associated with a printer to analyze a print command that is interpretable by the printer. The computer creates print commands for each of CMYK planes and generates a print image. Furthermore, after a computer transmits a print command to a printer, the computer receives print image data generated by the printer and displays a print image based on the received data.
A representative operating system (OS) for a computer incorporated in a printing system is, for example, Windows® provided by Microsoft Corporation. An application program installed on a computer can generate print data. The generated print data is stored in a spool file according to a standard data format of the OS. The OS invokes a printer driver to print the print data. The printer driver reads print data from the spool file. An image generation processing unit generates print image, and converts the generated print image into a print command that is interpretable by a printer. The print command is transmitted to the printer. The printer interprets the print command and executes print processing for forming a print image on a recording medium.
A printer driver of a conventional printing system can activate a previewer capable of providing a preview function for displaying an image to be printed before starting print processing. An image generation unit generates a print image to be previewed. The previewer displays the generated preview print image. Namely, the preview function of the printer driver can be realized by the image generation unit that generates a print image and the previewer that displays the print image, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-102618 corresponding to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004-0049741.
A conventional printing system can combine print jobs and perform a preview considering the layout of each print job. More specifically, the printing system generates an integrated job composed of a plurality of print jobs each including print data converted into the intermediate code format while storing layout information of each print job involved in this integrated job. In displaying a preview of combined jobs, the printing system reproduces the layout of respective print jobs involved in the integrated job by referring to the layout information of a page to be previewed. During a preview operation, the printing system can change layout information of respective print jobs in the integrated job without having any adverse effects on other print jobs because the printing system stores the layout information in addition to the intermediate data, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-130082 corresponding to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/698,052 filed on Oct. 30, 2000.
In addition, the previewer may process (modify) a preview print image generated by the image generation unit before performing a preview display, so that an image can be accurately printed on a disk-shaped recording medium (e.g., CD-R) or on a complicated rectangular medium. In this case, a conventional method (a CD-R area display function) enables a user to confirm image areas positioned inside and outside a medium area through the preview display of print contents beforehand, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-110807 corresponding to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004-0088654.
Furthermore, a conventional printing system allows a user to confirm print setting contents in addition to preview contents. A conventional printing system enables a user to change print settings during a preview display operation and continue actual print processing if any erroneous print setting is found during the preview display (referred to as “print setting change function”), as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-011847 corresponding to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005-0286100.
The above-described conventional technique includes the following problems to be solved. One of the above-described conventional printing systems can execute a preview while the printer driver is invoked by the OS. The print processing object of the printer driver invoked by the OS is the front print job in a print queue. In general, the print processing object is only one print job for each print queue. Accordingly, other print jobs in the print queue are not a print object for the printing system that is currently executing a preview function.
Therefore, if the print queue includes any print job being currently processed, the conventional printing system cannot execute a preview function for other print jobs. Furthermore, the printing system cannot start printing other jobs remaining in the same print queue before the printing system completes the preview of a presently processed job. Furthermore, when a plurality of users of the same OS simultaneously issue print jobs, the users cannot simultaneously use the preview function.
A printing system performs layout processing to generate a preview print image. At this moment, the above-described print job is intermediate data. Therefore, the printing system further performs bitmap processing for a display of a preview screen. However, the preview bitmap data subjected to the bitmap processing for a screen display may not be suitable for a printer that actually executes print processing and cannot be used for other purposes. More specifically, to generate a print image for an actual print operation, the printing system is required to perform the layout processing again. Namely, the printing system repeatedly performs the same layout processing every time a print image is generated.
When two or more print jobs are combined, another conventional printing system separately stores layout information of the integrated print jobs. Thus, the printing system is required to perform layout processing for displaying a print image using the preview function. Furthermore, a conventional printing system can change layout information during a preview operation. In this case, the printing system necessarily performs the layout processing for actual print processing performed by a printer. Namely, if the layout information is not changed during a preview operation, the printing system repeatedly performs the same layout processing for the preview operation and actual print processing.